by Michele Hauf
“I gave you an opportunity to kill a hell of a lot of vampires!”
While the two argued, Dante signaled to Kyler. Now would be a good time to get the hell out. But she shook her head, ignoring his insisting gesture toward the door. She had a vendetta with King.
The stake in his shoulder hurt, but it wasn’t going to drop him. When he reached Kyler and she clasped his hand, the massive wood and iron door behind them shook as if a hurricane rattled it from the other side. More warlock magic.
Boa realized they were attempting escape and with a flick of his fingers drew Dante and Kyler across the floor to him and King, their shoes skidding on the stones.
“Stay put,” the warlock said to the two of them. “You want eternity without fear of death?” he asked King. “There must be dozens of dead vampires within the vessel. You can give it a go.”
“Give it a go? Sounds not very professional to me. He wants to kill vamps,” Dante said to King. “All of us.”
Boa bristled proudly. The blood at his wrists had ceased to drip, but his abdomen and arms were smeared with it.
Dante stepped before Kyler. “You touch her and you die,” he said to King.
“Kill him,” King commanded Boa.
“No!” Kyler pleaded from behind Dante. “Accept that you are what you are, King. You’ve had a long life. It can continue!”
“Bitch,” King spat.
She lunged around Dante’s protective stance, and with a swing of her arm landed the syringe against King’s neck. The point of it pierced his carotid.
Boa whistled in appreciation of her daring.
“I’ll do it,” she threatened. “But I don’t want to.”
Cautiously raising his hands near his shoulders, King hissed and eyed Boa. The warlock crossed his arms high over his chest, inordinately pleased at the turn of events. His expression indicated he wanted to see if the vampiress would play her hand.
“That stuff won’t kill me,” King said.
“My blood?” Boa leaned forward in query and Dante nodded confirmation. “If it enters your bloodstream, it will. Any witch who was alive before the Great Protection spell? Oh yeah, our blood is powerful shit. And I am torn between allowing the pretty vampiress to have her triumph and protecting a man who does not appreciate all I have done for him.”
“It was your choice to continue to watch Grim,” King said through a tight jaw. He did not move. Dante kept an eye on his hands, neither of which gripped a stake. “If you kill both of them, you can write your own check. Take the egg!”
Boa scoffed. “It’s already mine. And I choose the woman. She wins this time.”
With that announcement, Boa clapped his hands together high above his head. In a golden flash the bejeweled Fabergé Nécessaire egg appeared in his hands. A triumphant chuckle erupted from the warlock. With a wink to Kyler, he then disappeared in a thunderclap of white light.
King said sharply, “Do it then!”
Without depressing the plunger, Kyler pulled the syringe away from his neck and tossed it to Dante.
King fell to his knees, defeated, head bowing until it touched the salted floor. “It is all I have wanted! I cannot continue always having to beware such mockery from a Bible.” He beat a fist on the floor.
Kyler stepped back to Dante and inspected the stake in his shoulder. “I did lie,” she said softly. “I didn’t mean any of those cruel words. You’ve always been there for me. I’m sorry if the things I said hurt you.”
“I’m tough,” he managed. But it had been close. He’d believed her and had felt his heart weep. “We’ll talk later. Pull the stake out,” he said. “Please?”
Wincing, she stepped behind him and gripped the stake. She put up a foot at his hip to create tension as she began to twist it out. It came out slowly and felt as though she were tugging out his skeletal structure along with it, but finally it came free and she stumbled backward. The stake hit the floor with a metallic clank. Dante clamped a hand over the bleeding wound. It would heal.
“Get out of here,” King huffed at them. “Go!”
“It was never meant to be,” Kyler said to the fallen vampire as Dante embraced her and turned her toward the door. “Be happy with the forever you have, King. Try love for once.”
King straightened with a hint of his imperious pride. A swipe of his hand wiped the blood from his forehead.
“He doesn’t want that,” Dante said. “He prefers drama and suffering. Just as he always has. You’re no longer a king, Charles de Valois. Accept that, and start living a real life.”
And with that, Dante and Kyler walked out, leaving the failed hunter kneeling in the middle of the destroyed salt circle. Death would have proven easier for him than the humiliation of failure.
Chapter 21
A week later...
Kyler strode across the vast marble floor in the fourth-floor apartment that Dante was considering buying. Located on the Île Saint-Louis in Paris, it sat directly behind Notre Dame cathedral. A strange view for a vampire to have, she thought. While Dante inspected the closet in the bedroom, she had wandered out to check the windows, to see if they were easy to open to let in the fresh air.
It mattered to her because they would share this place as a couple. After escaping King’s ridiculous quest for eternity, Dante had asked her to stay in his life. For as long as she desired.
That could be a very long time. But she would take each day as it came. With Dante in her life, she foresaw a wondrous and adventurous future.
“What do you think?” Dante asked as he strolled across the floor toward her. He wore his standard armor, bespoke gray Zegna accessorized with a summery mint-green tie. His leather scent filled her senses as he wrapped his arms around her waist from behind and leaned in to kiss her neck. His hand moved up to possessively squeeze one of her breasts.
“I like it. The location is central. The view is—hmm, a bit religious, but I can deal if you can. And the space is massive for a Paris apartment.”
“Have you looked in the closet? You’ll never be able to fill it with all the dresses and shoes you could buy over the decades.”
That he spoke in decades of their relationship meant the man’s walls had really been felled.
“I’ll give it a try,” she said. “But I suspect you’ll have as many suits and shoes yourself.”
“Nothing wrong with a well-tailored suit, Kitten.”
“So you’re really in, aren’t you?”
“In what?” He turned her around and tapped her nose with a finger. “Oh. You mean love?” He nodded and cracked a silly grin. Very different from his Casanova smirk. This smile was genuine and true. “I am. And I’m not afraid of it, either. I know I can trust you with my heart.”
“Oh, you can.” She slid a palm inside the suit coat to press against his chest. “You feel that?”
He nodded. “Our heartbeats synch much faster now. If we were bonded, our hearts would always beat the same pace. We’d know when the other was upset or even excited.”
“I’m excited right now. Can you feel that?” she asked, with a flutter of lashes.
He placed his hand at her breast and squeezed again promisingly.
“My heartbeats, silly,” she chided.
“Oh, I thought you wanted some excitement. A well-pleasured kitten is my one and only desire right now.”
“You want to do it here? What if the Realtor shows up?”
“She won’t be here until much later. Contract in hand and dollar signs in her eyes. I’m hungry for you. I want you on my tongue. Your skin, your lips, your blood.”
She turned into his embrace, and he bowed his head to kiss the top of her breast. And the prick of his fang teased at her skin. With a sigh of desire, Kyler said, “Yes, my love.”
He pierced her
deeply, drawing up an unbidden moan from her. Drawing out his fangs, he smiled up at her. A few droplets of blood dripped from his fangs to land on the hardwood floor. The Casanova grin returned.
“Let’s mark our new home in body and blood.”
* * * * *
I hope you enjoyed Dante and Kyler’s story! I’ve been wanting to tell Dante’s story since mentioning him in THE DARK’S MISTRESS. If you are interested in reading the stories about the other characters in this book, here’s what titles to look for at your favorite online retailer:
Rook is the hero of BEYOND THE MOON.
King has showed up in many stories, but mainly in BEYOND THE MOON.
Ian Grim also pops up in many stories.
Be sure to visit my website at michelehauf.com,
and if you want to see the Pinterest boards I’ve
created for each hero-heroine couple, stop by
pinterest.com/toastfaery.
Keep reading for an excerpt from BAYOU WOLF by Debbie Herbert
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Bayou Wolf
by Debbie Herbert
Chapter 1
The creature had been watching her ever since she entered the forest, half-hidden in the lengthening shadows. Trees rustled in the distance. One small sapling bowed, bending over until the tip brushed the ground. It was too far away for even her keen eyesight to locate the creature’s form or even a vague outline. But Tallulah sensed its energy emanating from the woods. A deer, perhaps? No, that wasn’t right. Too bold for a deer. Whatever it was, it didn’t appear to be a threat—for now.
Red feathers and black ribbons fluttered in the bayou breeze as she fastened the dream catcher to a cypress branch. Dozens of similar artifacts hung in varying states of disintegration, a shrine to her one and only love.
Bo had died here—832 nights ago—in this very spot. On this lonely patch of swampland, amidst the droning roar of a million mosquitoes, with nary a loved one to hold his numbed hands. Bohpoli Leyland, one of the most courageous shadow hunters of the Choctaw, was no more.
Tallulah tidied the area, rearranging her mandalas of seashells and clumps of crystals. Usually, tending the area was a comfort, a touch of spiritual communion. Sometimes she even talked out loud to Bo, recounting the day’s events or updating him on news of their friends. As if her words weren’t merely empty vibrations dying in the wind.
But this afternoon, she couldn’t shake the awareness of being watched. The longer the creature hung around, the more it bugged her. Whatever it was, the animal was curious, hungry, stupid, or some combination of all three.
She set about dusting pine straw from her little offerings to Bo. A hunk of rose quartz here, a beaded prayer rope there, an angel figurine.
Twigs snapped nearby.
Her brain and body lit into action. She quickly felt for the dagger tucked into her belt and scanned the gathering darkness. Patterns of long shadows crisscrossed the massive Spanish moss-draped oaks, the ever-present pine trees and the dense underbrush of saw palmettos. Nothing was visible out there, and only the barest of vibrations from the ground tingled the soles of her feet in warning.
Tallulah cautiously bent down and put her free hand in her backpack, where she carried her other weapons, all the while keeping her eyes and ears peeled for an intruder. She lifted her slingshot and pocketed several rocks, stuffing them into the leather pouch at her waist. They were the most effective weapon in battling the Ishkitini, birds of the night, and the only way to kill a will-o’-the-wisp.
But this felt different. There was no glow from a wisp, and the vibrations beneath her feet couldn’t come from the birds, which swooped from above to attack.
Yet something or someone was out there, stealthily advancing.
She straightened from her crouch and loaded the slingshot. Whatever emerged from the cover of darkness, she would not run, and she would not cower. A shadow hunter faced danger head on, confident in the power of their own heightened senses. As the only female hunter, Tallulah had diligently trained to be twice as brave and skillful as her male comrades in the fight against the dark shadow spirits that roamed Bayou La Siryna.
A metallic whiff blended into the normal scent of pine and sea, and her mouth soured at the taste of copper. What new hell was this?
Before she could think too deeply about the mystery, a growl purred in quiet menace. She swallowed hard and unsheathed her dagger. If it was a bobcat, she’d shoot a stone near its body and scare it away.
The growl erupted into a hiss of anger, and she located the sound’s source—about fifty yards away in thick underbrush. Her eyes strained in the dark. Despite her heightened senses, she didn’t quite have the nocturnal sight of an owl or cat. But her sight was good enough to hunt and find predators in the night. It was what she and Bo and a dozen others had been born to do. A sacred gift and duty to keep good and evil balanced in the bayou.
Shadows shifted, patterns realigned and huge paws emerged from cover. Eyes gleamed in the darkness, but Tallulah held her ground. This was no bobcat—this was a monstrously oversized coyote, the largest she’d ever seen.
“Get outta here,” she yelled.
But the damn thing stalked forward, and her scalp prickled at its approach. This was no ordinary coyote. If she weren’t positive that Nalusa Falaya was safely imprisoned in their Choctaw sacred tree, she’d be suspicious that the bayou’s most powerful shadow spirit had returned and shape-shifted into a new form.
Tallulah held up the loaded slingshot and pulled back the band. “I said git!”
But it displayed no fear, instead advancing another few feet. Must be rabid, she decided. What else could account for such strange boldness? Tallulah narrowed her eyes, studying the creature. Its twitching ears were short, with rounded tips, and its snout was broad, whereas coyotes sported long, pointy ears and a narrow snout. Not only that, but the animal was also too large for a coyote.
It was wolf-sized.
Impossible. There were no wolves in south Alabama. Her arms shook from the tension of holding back the slingshot’s band.
Its eyes glowed, and it again growled, gnashing its teeth.
Tallulah released her grip, and the rock whirled through the air to strike the beast’s furry chest. It let out a small yelp of surprise, but it didn’t turn tail and run. Instead, muscles flexed on its lean flanks as if it were preparing to take a running leap.
Str
ange. Most wild creatures had a healthy respect for humans and their weapons. But if that’s the way it wanted to play, then she was prepared.
With the speed and accuracy gained from years of training as a shadow hunter, Tallulah unleashed a volley of shots, peppering the creature with rock after stinging rock. The animal snarled and glared, and stood its ground, unyielding. She swore it had an eerie intelligence that marked her for a future encounter. Tallulah reloaded her slingshot and once again raised the weapon, a warning of more shots to come. The beast turned and loped out of sight.
Alone again, she realized her arm was burning with the strain of the rapid shooting, and she caught her breath as her adrenaline surge subsided. “Did you see that, Bo?” she panted, her breath quick and shallow.
How ironic it would have been if she had ended up dying in this exact spot, just as Bo had. His death resulted when the great shadow spirit, Nalusa Falaya, had shape-shifted into a rattlesnake and had bitten him repeatedly, sending supercharged venom into Bo’s body. A mauling by this wolf creature would be just as painful, maybe even slower.
Tallulah put her hands on her hips and shook her head. “This place gets freakier and freakier. There’s more than just the will-o’-the-wisps and the Ishkitini we fought together. Now there are fairies and who knows what else.”
And here she thought she’d seen it all. Should have known better after last year, when she and the other hunters had discovered a secret fairy world existing under their noses. The fae weren’t evil like the shadow spirits that roamed these woods, but they had their own code of self-preservation that made them untrustworthy allies in the fight to keep evil contained in the bayou.
Maybe tonight’s wolfish creature was an anomaly. Maybe she’d never see it again.
And maybe she’d grow wings and fly. Like Tinkerbell. She couldn’t help snorting. Anyone who knew her for more than a day realized she was light-years away from a sparkly, bubbly, fairy-type personality—in truth, she more closely resembled a grouchy goblin. Those who cared for her called her challenging or abrupt, while those who cared nothing for her, which was the majority of people, merely called her bitchy.
